


I've Seen You In a Dream

by curiously_consciencess_sadist



Category: Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 05:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2457428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiously_consciencess_sadist/pseuds/curiously_consciencess_sadist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I know you; I’ve seen you in a dream.<br/>-A Very Potter Musical<br/>A headcanon of mine. I'm not going to give away too much, but it makes watching the show and reading the books quite interesting (adding on to the ginormous amounts of preexisting interesting) when considering the suggested relationships between four of the central characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Big Thoughts

Todd had always been small. He’d always felt small. He’d been born (found) underweight (underloved) and had been that way (miserable) ever since (and maybe even longer). He didn’t really look normal (if such a thing truly exists), what with his flop of jet black hair and icy blue eyes that were so big, other boys (and some of the girls) in his kindergarten class said they bugged out of his head.  
It wasn’t just that they made fun of, either. He was subjected to constant ridicule and verbal abuse from all sides. Perhaps the worst was at home. When he was at Skool, at least it was people who weren’t obligated to care for him that told him he was a freak, a weirdo, that should just go kill himself. But at home, his own parents told him to go get kidnapped. He was sure (hopeful, at least) that they didn’t mean it.  
Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly sad, he’d lie on his bed, curl up in the fetal position, hug Shmee, and tell himself the only reason he was so small was because he felt so small. He felt like an insignificant speck of dust in a field of boulders the size of minivans. Planets.  
And then, so that he wouldn’t feel so terrible, he’d tell himself that all he had to do was think big thoughts, and he’d grow up to be a big person. Big and tall and handsome and nice and brave and everyone would love him. Except... he wasn’t sure if someone could be all those things at the same time. If you were too big and tall, people would be scared of you, and might not even be able to see your face. If you were handsome, and everyone loved you, you could turn into, well, a jerk. And if you were nice, you would be used as a doormat (sometimes literally) and then thrown away. You couldn’t be brave and nice. Not at the same time.  
And if you were brave, well, you were dead.  
Maybe, just maybe, he could grow up and be perfect. Enough of everything so he wasn’t a living contradiction of logic and social patterns. He’d like that.  
And all he had to do? Well, that was easy. He had to think thoughts that were big and tall and handsome and nice and brave and make everyone love him.   
But those thoughts weren’t easy to find.  
Not for Todd.  
Nny helped him grow up.


	2. The Funeral

Years Later

So much had happened...  
How could it have all happened so quickly?  
It wasn’t fair...  
Life wasn’t fair...  
It seemed like only yesterday that he’d been met Nny, and even later when everything else followed. He had (literally) been through Hell, and... well, maybe he had become a better person for it. He was certainly braver. Stronger. Smarter. But not bigger. It felt like only his head had grown, and that had become the newest thing to ridicule about him.  
“How do you walk without falling over, Todd?”  
“Go back to the bobble-head factory you were made in!”  
“Look at his head! It’s so bulbous!”  
He’d learned to tune them out. A talent he was using now, as he fidgeted in his uncomfortable folding chair, tugging at the tight collar of the black suit he was wearing. He didn’t want to hear old people who had (supposedly) ‘known’ his parent in high-school. If they’d really known them, they wouldn’t be here, and they certainly wouldn’t be droning on and on about what good and virtuous people they had been. They had been neglective, even abusive. If only he’d realized that when he’d first met Nny.  
Nny.  
Where had he gone?  
Todd didn’t exactly miss him, but he felt (almost) empty without him. It had been like having some sort of guardian (angel?) demon. A shadow that dismembered anything that threatened his physical well being.   
He was the only one the ever called him Squee. Really the only one that ever noticed (cared) when he whimpered the word, clinging tight to whatever he was holding at the time. It was nice. Sort of like receiving flattering love notes from a stalker that watches you sleep, but still. Nice.  
And he was gone, too.  
Almost all his ties to the past were gone.  
The house had burnt down. He’d been at Skool (3rd grade) at the time, but both his parents had been at home. They had been burnt to the ground, as well as everything else he’d owned.  
All he had was what he’d brought to school that day. What he’d worn.  
Worn canvas sneakers. Jeans that were a few sizes too small. A straight faced emoticon shirt that was just a few sizes too big.  
Shmee. The nightmares that had hid in the closet, and the broken window, and the cabinet where they kept the bactine. The memories hiding under the bed, whispering things only they could remember. All gone. He was all that remained of that past. His past.  
Him and that shirt.  
Nny had a shirt sort of like that.  
It was black and white, horizontally striped, but it still had the face on it. His shirt with the face was too big for him. Maybe he’d keep it.  
Todd had looked for Shmee, you know. When he’d heard about the fire, he’d been devastated, yet for some reason, his mind didn’t go to his clothes, or his piggy bank, or even his parents. It had gone to Shmee. When he arrived at the fire, he’d reached out. Tears were pouring from his eyes. He’d broken away from the adults holding him back, digging through the ash and charred wood, in pursuit of a runaway dream. A dead dream, now.  
He’d kept digging, he wouldn’t give up, and he pushed through everything else, looking for the familiar, comforting sight of his only friend. And it was nowhere to be found.  
“Don’t be gone, don’t be gone, don’t be gone!” He’d screamed, but then he’d inhaled the ash, and coughed to hard to say anything. He coughed, and coughed, and coughed, until the adults came, and picked him up, and cradled him, and told him his parents would always be in his heart, but they were wrong. His parents were gone. Long gone. Maybe even from before the fire.  
But he didn’t care. It was Shmee he needed.  
Where were those big thoughts now?


End file.
